Many of us mid-career workers are racing to update our skills. Beyond the immediate recession, we can see that companies are less and less interested in providing long-term employment. New technologies quickly render experience obsolete. And a lot of white-collar industries (finance, real estate, and, ahem, media) look like they'll be smaller and less lucrative even after the recovery comes. But going back to school is tough once you have a mortgage and kids.

In my MONEY magazine column this month, I spot a glimmer of hope in "open source" online education. Some of the world's best schools — Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon and even the Indian Institutes of Technology — are posting free course materials and lectures online. They're not a bad way to get up to speed on certain subjects, but they don't yet help you get any credentials to signal to employers that you've really learned the stuff. My column speculates a bit on how that gap might be bridged, particularly for professionals who have already gone to college and don't need a full master's degree.

Since I wrote that, the The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a more extensive look at just this issue. And it reports some discouraging news: More

This fall, your children can watch Warren Buffett, America's greatest investor, imparting his wisdom online from AOL. But the Oracle of Omaha might look a little different that you remember him — he'll be appearing as a cartoon.

The online animated series, called "Secret Millionaire's Club," will feature Buffett mentoring a group of children as they try to turn the Omaha Candy Company into a successful business. In an interview with CNNMoney.com's Poppy Harlow, Buffett talked about how everyone's financial habits are learned early, and how he wanted to teach kids good habits early. "It's just as easy to pick up good habits as bad habits, but you have to be exposed to them," said Buffett. "And what better way than to tell them through stories that entertain them at the same time?"

He has enough nuggets from his letters and speeches to fill at least ten episodes: "Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction." "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." "Our favorite holding period is forever." "When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy.

You can watch a sneak peek of the AOL program online. (AOL is majority-owned by Money's parent, Time Warner.)

While Buffett definitely is sending the right message, the title of the series, unfortunately, sends the wrong one. "Secret Millionaire's Club" sounds as greed-driven as a sequel to "Liar's Poker." Selling success as a exclusive club conjures up memories of bankers speaking in an arcane language of credit-default swaps and mortgage-backed securities that the rest of us didn't understand. Why does Buffett's approach to good money habits have to be presented as a secret? Although Buffett is a master at investing, he's the antithesis of the Wall Street Master of the Universe with a secret formula — you know, the kind that blows up the economy in the end.

Buffett's always been noted as a champion of philanthropy, and I'm curious to see how much that aspect of his life will be present in the show. (His $37 billion donation to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is still thought to be the largest charitable contribution ever.) For those who do make it to the top, he has this advice: "If you're in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent."

Wouldn't it be more fitting with Mr. Buffett's philosophy and the current needs of this country if the show were named "The Not-Secret Long-Term, Patient, Slow-But-Steady-Growing, Don't-Buy-It-Unless-You-Can-Afford-It, Common-Sense Club?"

Doesn't really have the same ring to it, does it?

When you start searching for that perfect college for your child, you might think there's plenty of information to help you with your decision. Just for starters, every college has a website that will give you all the essentials.

Take Stephens College, a private, four-year women's school in Columbia, Missouri. A quick tour of its website will tell you that the college offers more than 50 major and minors, everything from English to event planning to equestrian science. Class sizes average just 13 students. Annual costs total $32,250, but nearly all students get some kind of financial aid. And the campus looks nice.

But what you  won't see without diligent searching is that half of Stephens students fail to graduate, even after six years. Not to pick on Stephens, which does mention that statistic deep in its website. Point is, little of the data that colleges provide really tell you much about the value of your investment: the quality of the education, the experience of the students, or how the graduates fare later in life. Instead parents have long accepted the value of the diploma on faith. And many assume that a college that charges $50,000 a year will give their child a better education than one that charges $25,000.

That may be about to change. As tapped-out families realize they can no longer borrow more and more for expensive colleges, they are increasingly focusing on lower-priced schools.  As two college officials recently warned, higher education may be the next bubble to burst. Many experts are even questioning the value of a college degree in an economy where B.A.s are competing, often unsuccessfully, with high school graduates and those with vocational training.

All of which may give momentum to long-standing efforts to improve higher education accountability, which is something that colleges have successfully resisted for years. (Ironically, these same schools have demanded increasing amounts of information about applicants and their parents' ability to pay.) As Kevin Carey, policy director at Education Sector, noted in a recent interview, "Families need more disclosure about value of the education their money is buying, and the federal government should encourage colleges to make this information transparent."

Truth is, many colleges do a poor job at graduating well-educated students. A recent study by the American Enterprise Institute found that on average four-year colleges graduate fewer than 60% of their students with six years. And there were wide differences among all categories of schools; even for the most competitive colleges, average graduation rates differed by 13 percentage points. (To find out the graduation rates for many four year colleges, go to collegeresults.org.) Other studies have found that good students who attended less prestigious colleges ended up earning the same as those who went to brand-name schools.

It wouldn't be that hard to provide data about educational quality, since schools compile most of it anyway. They just keep it private, which is curious considering that most colleges are public institutions or or least partially funded by taxpayers. The National Survey of Student Engagement gathers loads of data on how they spend their time in school and how they feel about their education.The College Learning Assessment tests students' ability to reason analytically and solve problems during their academic career. As for student outcomes after graduation, well, most colleges keep tabs on their alumni for fundraising purposes. So it's time that they shared some of that information with tuition-paying families.  And who knows? A little more disclosure might improve the quality of higher education and even slow the rate of tuition hikes.

Tell us, what information would you like colleges to provide?

Strapped for cash? Want someone to pay for your way through college? These pitches made by military recruiters seem to be working, since each of the military service academies has seen a sharp rise in applications this year — ranging from a 9% increase at West Point to a 40% jump at the U.S. Naval Academy.

While I’d like to think that the sudden interest reflects a renewed pride in patriotism and interest in national defense, it’s more likely that the draw of free tuition is an increasingly powerful lure. Students at the academies receive an all-expenses-paid undergraduate education in return for the promise of serving in the military after graduation. And reducing college education expenses is high on everyone's mind these days, boosting enrollment in community colleges and spikes in applications for financial aid at four-year schools.

The military's financial support is particularly attractive at a time when the costs of higher education are skyrocketing, with no end in sight. The average college endowment — the main pool for funding financial aid at private institutions — dropped 25-30% in the last year. Although tuition fees have grown more slowly this year, the savings are still a pittance. Public colleges are no longer the affordable fallback plan either, as noted in the June issue of MONEY. As options for high education seem bleak, the newest crop of students seem willing to take risk of serving in the military in the return for the promise of some financial stability.

Even if a student's family can navigate through the expenses of an elite private or public college, after all, the prospect of economic payoff from a degree feels more at risk. Consider that the unemployment rate for new graduates, at 11%, is higher than the national average. After adding the burden of student debts to that mix, pursuing an undergraduate degree through the traditional path doesn't feel like an ideal investment. 

In addition to avoiding accrued debt, graduates of military academies may have another advantage in entering the workforce after service. An undergraduate education at a military academy is comparable to an education at an elite civilian university; the leadership skills, discipline and technical skills honed in the military’s core curriculum make these veterans unique candidates. General Electric, for one, offers veteran officers a special management training program with the explanation, “Your service made you a leader and a disciplined, strategic thinker with a level of loyalty that is unmatched.”

Obviously the volatility of the labor market still make job placement uncertain for veterans. Another downside may be that the years of required active duty fall during the prime career-building period when civilian peers are creating their early job history.  Returning veterans may find themselves behind in making connections that are crucial to long-term success — although they may have their own network of military colleagues to draw upon.

The financial stability provided by the government is a necessary payment for the unparalleled risks faced by members of the armed forces. Serving is no joke, but neither is managing student debt for decades after graduation.

Debt Ski's pig collects money, purchases and debt.

Some of the lamest books for kids are designed to teach them financial responsibility. Their approach: With a spoonful of sugar–Hey, kids! Look at the pretty pictures! Listen to the rhymes!–you can make the medicine go down: Savings good! Debt bad! But kids (like adults) resist being preached to. And good intentions can make for lousy art, which is why you're not going to see The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food on any top-ten lists.

It's also why, when MTV invited me to preview an ostensibly fun online videogame designed to teach college students about financial responsibility, I was skeptical. Aside from my suspicions fueled by bad children's-finance literature, I doubted a videogame could teach someone of any age much if the groundwork hasn't been there in the household, or among peers, over the prior two decades.

And yet…maybe there is something to this game, which MTV launched in conjunction with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, (and which has its own fiscal agenda).

Debt Ski,  which debuted today at www.debtski.com, reminds me of a lot of the time-sucking games I see my younger son playing on such free sites such as Miniclip.com: a character moves from left to right in a side-scrolling landscape, picking up tokens hanging in mid-air along the way. In Debt Ski (think Jet Ski), it's a pig on a personal watercraft. Most of the tokens are money, which you, the player, want to maximize. The other tokens signify things you spend money on: Some are necessities, of which you have to pick up a certain number each round; others are wants, such as TVs and laptop computers, which give you happiness points if you "buy" them by picking them up. But these purchases will cost you (you pay at the end of each round by cash or credit card, with a $7,500 limit).

The object is to score as many points as possible, which you get by multiplying your net worth (cash minus debt) by your happiness points. Some caveats: If your debts outweigh your cash, those happiness points count against you. And if you don't spend enough on necessities each round, you automatically lose the game.

Since my above-mentioned 11-year-old son is closer to the target audience than me (and unlike me, is actually a competent gamer), I tore him away from the homework and forced him to test the game for me. Once I explained what the game was and what it was designed to teach, he warned me that it was probably going to be boring and he definitely wasn't going to learn anything from it. And yet, driven by the desire to get his name on the high-score list (and take a homework break), he gave it a shot.

He died a lot of early deaths, until I pointed out to him that he probably needed to spend money upgrading his Debt Ski's jumping and breaking ability–a strategy that's not immediately made clear to players. He finally completed the game–but didn't make the high-score list because he was in the red. And his capsule review? "This game is so addictive," he announced in the midst of playing.

But I was more impressed with something he said to himself while unaware that I was listening. "My debt, my debt, I'm paying off my debt," he was sing-songing as he collected tokens. Wow. Any game that can get an 11-year-old to say that has something going for it.

by JEANNE FLEMING, PH.D. and LEONARD SCHWARZ

Question: When my father-in-law learned we were planning to move to a community with better schools, he said he’d send our sons to parochial schools here. He paid for their first semester, but hasn’t paid since. Doesn’t he have an obligation to honor this commitment? He’s not hurting for money, and we stayed because of his promise.

Answer: We sure hope you’re not counting on your father-in-law to help send your boys to college (and we’re not kidding).

Breaking a promise is, of course, never a nice thing to do. But the extent to which it’s simply crummy as opposed to seriously unethical depends on two things: 1) the degree to which the promise involves a quid pro quo and 2) the degree to which the recipient of the promise is hurt when the promise-maker reneges.

So, on the quid pro quo front, did your father-in-law agree to pay the tuition in return for your agreeing not to move? If he did, he has a moral obligation to honor his commitment (assuming he hasn’t suffered a serious financial setback in the interim). He’s obligated, that is, unless his failure to pay has had no real consequences for you and your family. You make the point that your father-in-law isn’t hurting for money, but how about you? If you can afford the tuition as easily as he can but you just don’t want to pay it, then his failure to keep his word, while unequivocally dishonorable, is not such a terrible ethical breech.

Questions? Email Money Magazine’s ethicists – authors of “Isn’t It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check?” (Free Press) – at FlemingandSchwarz@right-thing.net.